It has long been the desire of manufacturers, suppliers, retailers, and other sellers of products, goods, and services to efficiently reach consumers with promotional advertising in the form of coupons. Sellers often place coupons in newspapers or magazines to attract customers. However, because many persons in a certain market area do not subscribe to newspapers or magazines containing such coupons, the seller is incapable of reaching those persons. Also, newspapers and magazines are often saturated with ads and coupons. Consequently, such ads may fail to get noticed.
Sellers have recognized that advertisers frequently reach potential consumers by placing packets of advertisements at the potential consumer's home. Typically, the packets consist of a plastic bag filled with advertising. Advertisers, being cost conscious, have been placing advertisements on the bag and have even begun to attach coupons to the bag itself. However, prior approaches for applying a coupon to a plastic bag have been deficient; for example, the coupons may not have been easily removable, may not have been attractive to the consumer, or may have damaged the structure of the bag when removed. In addition, prior approaches have been deficient or lacking in applying multiple coupons to a single bag that are easily separable from one another and the bag.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,206,570 to Cortopassi discloses a flexible container that has a removable section on which coupons or other marketing information may be printed. The removable section may be separated from the bag container without compromising the container's integral barrier wall.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,068,584 to Daniels et al. discloses a plastic bag having a promotional strip. The promotional strip is connected to the bag at the top edge and the bottom edge of the bag. The promotional strip may be disposed either between the folded bag edges forming gussets or outside of the gussets. Further, the promotional strip may or may not be perforated.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,298,104 to Absher discloses a flexible bag with a removable coupon. The removable coupon can be peeled from the surface of the bag. In this invention, the coupon is essentially a sticker placed on the bag.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,011,466 to DeMatteis et al. discloses a T-shirt type grocery bag having a tear-off coupon provided during manufacture. The coupon is formed in the area typically removed for the formation of the handle portion of the bag.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,804,323 to Bemel discloses a shopping bag with a detachable coupon portion. The coupon portion is either a perforated tear-away portion along one side of the mouth of the shopping bag or is a tear-away pocket on the outside bottom of the bag.
Consumers may be unwilling to go to the trouble of tearing off coupons from bags perhaps because of the unattractiveness of the coupons placed upon the bags which the prior art has provided or because of the difficulty in removing the coupon from bag. In addition, the plastic material of some bags may be unsuitable for use as a coupon from the consumer's perspective. Accordingly, there is a need for an inexpensive and efficient way to provide bags having high quality coupons attached thereto which are attractive to the consumer and easily removeable such that the consumer will wish to make use of the coupon.
Consequently, it is a primary objective of the invention to provide an inexpensive and efficient way to manufacture bags having high quality coupons such that the coupons are attractive to the consumer yet are easily removeable.
Further, it is also an objective of the present invention to provide an inexpensive and efficient way to manufacture bags having multiple high quality coupons such that the coupons are attractive to the consumer, easily removeable from the bag and easily separable.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide the bag manufacturer with the ability to include multiple coupons that are easily separated from one another.
It will be appreciated that similar advantages may obtain in other applications of the present invention. Such advantages may become apparent from the present disclosure or through practice of the present invention.